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CenSES annual report 2014
30
Dissemination
Grønn Agenda
On February 25, 2014, the Ministry of Climate and Envi-
ronment invited to a debate at NTNU. CenSES director
Asgeir Tomasgard participated in the panel together with
minister of Climate and Environment Tine Sundtoft. The
Grønn Agenda (Green Agenda) meeting was the third one
in Sundtoft’s tour around the country in order to get input
to the initiative for green development and environmental
technology.
“We face a very large challenge. We must transform pro-
duction and consumption such that we achieve about 80
percent lower greenhouse gas emissions and much better
resource e ciency. This means large investments each sin-
gle year for 30 to 50 years. Hence, the demand for technolo-
gies which can help to tackle this challenge”, Sundtoft said.
Sundtoft is keen to see climate and environmental chal-
lenges as something which creates new opportunities for
society. Sundtoft made more speci c what green develop-
ment is about: development of environmentally friendly
input factors in a number of industries, for everything from
renewable energy to maritime transport, construction and
processing industries and utilization of natural resources
such as seaweed and kelp for production of food and en-
ergy. All panel participants agreed that focusing on envi-
ronmental technology needs governmental support.
“For many investments in environmental technology, the
risk is too high as long as pollution is cheap. Often, this is
immature technology which shall be rolled out in immature
markets. In such cases, the government should purposely
subsidize investments at an early stage”, Asgeir Tomasgard
stated.
Tomasgard also had speci c suggestions to overcome this.
“In order to increase commercialization of research, direct
measures such as earmarked supplementary scholarships
for interested PhD candidates are conceivable. This way,
they can learn more about entrepreneurship already during
their training period”.
For more information about the panel discussion,
see
www.censes.no.Grønn agenda debate.
To the left Centre Director in CenSES Asgeir Tomasgard,
Secretary General in Norsk Venturekapitalforening Knut
T. Traaseth, Minister of Climate and Environment Tine
Sundtoft, Communications adviser Erik Aasheim, rector
at NTNU Gunnar Bovim. Not in the picture: Student at
NTNU and manager in Tekna Kim Allgot and director at
SINTEF Energy Inge R. Gran.